When you run Fallout New Vegas for the first time, the program
automatically sets the graphics for you, based on your PC. If you're
actually happy with the way the program set things up graphically, then
just play the game and don't change anything . . . and you're probably
in the wrong place right now, because that's 90% of what this section is
about. But if you want to find some ways to tweak up the graphics AND
still get acceptable FPS, then you might want to try out some of my
tweaks (Oh, I should probably point out that "my" doesn't mean that I
come up with all these tweaks (although I did come up with a few of them
on my own) . . . "my" refers to my collection of tweaks, that improved both the appearance and
the performance of Fallout NewVegas on my previous computer.

If you have an
NVidia
graphics card, I strongly suggest that you use
nHancer(Advanced Control Panel and Profile Editor for
nVidia cards).

Arwen Note: The
information below was written for Fallout 3, when I was using an
older graphics card: an
XFX
NVidia GeForce8800 GTS 640MB
DDR3 @500MHz (but it should also apply to Fallout New Vegas,
since they both use the same game engine).

Using
nHancer, I was able to increase my FPS in Fallout 3 by 60-80%.
This made a HUGE difference to how my game ran, looked, and it
actually reduced my VATS lag and my crashes to desktop (now nearly
non- existent)

First of all . . . make sure that
you have the latest
drivers for your graphics card installed!

With these
settings, I'm now GENERALLY getting 33 to 45 FPS (according to FRAPS) in the
Wasteland . . . that's with all the graphic sliders at maximum, and
with all the mods in my FO3 mod list installed (including the ones that
add high resolution textures) . . . so I'm VERY happy!

What is DT . . .
or why doesn't my gun seem to have any effect against some
creatures?- DT= Damage Threshold. It is the base
armor, and will protect you from any damage that is lower
than this value.
- And it can also apple to creatures. For instance, if
a rad scorpion has a DT of 5 and your pistol only does 4 DAM
(damage), you won't hurt it at all. If you have a shotgun
that does 6 damage then you do 2 points of damage each hit.
- When the DT is higher than your Weapon DAM, a red shield
appears near the enemy's health bar during combat (both in
and out of VATS).
- The information on DT is still a bit sketchy . . . I've
also heard that a creature always receives a minimum of -1
HP when hit, even when the weapon has a lower DAM value than
the creature's DT value.

Hard Core Mode:
why does my character die in his or her sleep? Isn't the
game suppose to warn me of this?- I'm guessing that you've set the Timescale
slower that default . . . as the two are often connected.
- In the default game, you gain a need point once every 10
seconds for water, every 25 seconds for food, and every 50
seconds for sleep. When you are in normal game-play, this is
based on real-life seconds. When you sleep or wait (I'm not
sure about fast travel, since I never use it), Timescale is
factored in. I just know that it is all based on the game's
default timescale, and decreasing your timescale inversely
increases your needs rates. A 30 Timescale means that game
time passes 30 times faster than real time. So, if your want
the game to pass at the real time rate, you set your
timescale to 1.

The Needs/Timescale Issue:
If you set your time scale at 15, so that game time passed twice
as slow as default, your Needs accumulate at double the default
rate. So with the default Timescale of 30, and Water Needs set
at 10 (default), your Water Need increases at 12 points/game
hour; which is 360 points for every real hour that you play, and
you start having dehydration penalties after 200 points (after ~
33 real minutes). If you set the Timescale to 15, you get
dehydrated twice as fast; so you would hit 200 points after just
over 16 real minutes. Fortunately all the Needs rates are set
really low, so slower timescales actually work better (as long
as you don't set it too low). A Timescale of 7 or 8 is about
perfect (as in the Needs generally increase at a much more
realistic rate).

Now for the Seeping Issue:
Using the default 30 Timescale, it takes about 16.5 game hours
(33 real minutes) before you begin to get dehydrated. But if you
set your Timescale to 4 (like I do), it only takes 2.2 game
hours (33 real minutes) to begin getting dehydrated. See the
problem? At the default 30 Timescale, your Water Need will
increase by 96 points during 8 hours of sleep (12 points/game
hour * 8 hours). But, if my Timescale is set to 4, my Water Need
will increase by 720 points (90 points/game hour) . . . which
can be a problem.

My Solution in my NV Realism
Tweaks (for now): was to add a sleep/wait script that
temporarily resets the timescale back to 30 while you sleep. It
prevents you from dying in your sleep, but it is not a perfect
solution. Once NVSE (FOSE for New Vegas) is released, I'll be
able to add my script that automatically alters the Needs, based
on whatever your timescale is set at. Essentially the three
Needs rates will then be based on Game Time instead of on Real
Time (like they should have been in the first place).

One of the best
things about Fallout New Vegas is that it came with a program called
Garden of Eden Creation Kit
[G.E.C.K.] This
program is used to create, modify, and edit data in the game. And these changes and additions are
added to your installed game through MODs. (Note: you do not have
to use G.E.C.K. to install and use mods that were made by
other people.)

So MODs are used to modify your game
(the term "MOD" is just short for "modify").

You see, my Fallout
New Vegas
Journal is meant to be a role-playing guide, since Fallout New Vegas is a
Role-Playing game (or RPG).

Adding the right
combination of mods to your game can change Fallout New Vegas into a much better
RPG (of course, everyone has their own ideas about what is "better" in a
RPG, so you might not want to install all the mods that are my Fallout New Vegas Mod List).

Testing a ton of mods and trying to find the best combination is a
long, and often very frustrating process. Fortunately, I have a lot
of experience at doing this (see my Oblivion Journal
and my Fallout 3 Journal),
so I'm much fast than I used to be (and make fewer mistakes now).
I'm also a somewhat experienced modder now, having spent the last 15
month modding Fallout 3, including the creation of a huge FO3
Overhaul: my FO3 Realism
Tweaks.

My
main goal in adding MODS has always been to make the game more fun!

The MODs that I use in my own game will do
at least one of the following:

1.)

Made Fallout New Vegas
more balanced (Rebalancing and Leveling Mods)

2.)

Correct and/or
improve the game quests (Quest Fixing Mods)

3.)

Made Fallout New Vegas
a better Role-playing game (Realism Mods)

4.)

Improved the
way information was presented to the player (Interface Mods)

5.)

Improved the
appearance of the game (Graphic Mods)

6.)

Added some new
things to the game (Expansion Mods)

I want Fallout New Vegas to be a Role Playing Game that will be
a real adventure for me, so I'll be compiling a
good
combination of mods that give me that.

I also have my own ideas about what is wrong with
Fallout New Vegas (and what needs to be fixed),
so my preferences in selecting
mods might be very different from what others might want in their
game. So look at this more as a mod review (for a very small percentage
of the mods that are available for Fallout New Vegas).

Arwen Note: The information below was written for Fallout 3, and
the Mod Manager has not yet been ported over to Fallout New Vegas.
So this is mostly just a place holder . . . once the NVMM is released,
I'll update this section.

Please Note: these are just my own personal BASIC
instructions on how to use the
Fallout Mod Manager
[FOMM]to install and manage your
mods. FOMM does way more than I have explained here,
so my instructions should not in any way be considered as an FOMM
instruction guide. My only intent here is to provide some basic
instructions on how to install mods - and FOMM is, in my opinion, the
best way to do this.

1.)

Find the mod and download it
to your Desktop.(Note: a mod can be just a single esp file,
but most mods contain a number of files in what is called an
archive - which is usually in compressed format, to make the
archive smaller in size, so that it will be faster to
download.)I have included
the download links for all the mods that I have listed, so locating and
downloading should be easy.
To keep my downloaded mods better organized, I made a
"Fallout Mods" folder on my Desktop, where I download all my
mods to.

2.)

If you need to Unzip the mod
archive (extract the compressed
files), you need to use a program like
7-ZipNOTE: if you use the
Fallout Mod Manager
[FOMM]to install mods, you usually
don't have to unzip the archive. (If a mod is not packaged correctly to
be used in FOMM, you will have to unzip the mod, rearrange
the contents and then rezip it, making a new archive.
But I'm not going to cover all that here.)

3.)

Read the ReadME (the text file that
came with the mod).The ReadMe
contains information on how to install, configure, update, and uninstall
that specific mod. With 7-Zip,
you can read basic text files without unzipping it (just
open the archive).

4.)

Install the mod.Since you really should be using FOMM to install your mods, the remainder of my
instructions on how to install your mod will be on how to do
this with FOMM. And I'm only covering how to do with
mod archives, since this is the easiest way to install mods.

4.a)

Open (start) FOMM.Any esm or esp files that are currently in your
Fallout/Data folder, should be listed in the upper left
window. At the very least, you should see the
Fallout3.esm. If nothing is listed, then FOMM (or FO3) isn't installed properly.

4.b)

Click on the
Package Manager button.This will open a new window. Only the mods that you
have previously install with FOMM will be listed here.
This is actually the list of fomods, which are the converted
mods, that FOMM uses (they are stored by default in your
FOMM directory, in the fomm/mods folder).

4.c)

Click on the
Add New button.This will open a new window. Navigate to the location of
the mod you want to install, select the mod archive, and
click on the Open button.This will return you to the Package Manager window, where
the new mod should be listed at the bottom of the fomod
list.

4.d)

Select your newly created
fomod (click on it, which will highlight it) and then click
on the Edit Info button.A new window will open. This is where you can edit
or add information about the mod, such as the version number
(which really helps when you're wondering if you have the
latest version of the mod). Note: You can also add
your own description of what the mod does - which will help
you in keeping track of your mods - after all, you don't
want to be adding mods that make the same changes to the
game - which can cause conflicts, and mess up your game).
You can assign the mod to a group
(in the group list) - which also helps in keeping your mods
better organized.

4.e)

When you are
done editing the information on the mod, click on the
Save button (at the
bottom). Don't worry if you don't have all the
information on the mod, as you can return and edit this
information anytime. Note:
You can also view
the mod's Readme file (if it has one), by click on the
View Readme button.

5.)

Activate the mod.The fomod should still be highlighted (if it is not,
click on it again).Click on the
Activate
button.The box in front of the mod's name should now
have a check mark in it.Close the PackageManager (which should return you to the
main FOMM window).

6.)

Put the esp and esm files in the
correct load order.The correct load order is sometimes given in the ReadMe
(especially when the mod has multiple esps), but
it also depends on what other mods you have installed (due
to
compatibility. All esm files must ALWAYS load first (before any esp files).
When two mods make some of the same changes, the last
one loaded (further down the list) will overwrite the
earlier change.In the Fallout Mod Managerall you have to do is select the file
and drag the esp up or down with your mouse (or highlight it
and move it with your keyboard's up/down arrow keys) Note: the mods further
down the list load after any mods above them.If you're not sure what order to put your mods in, you can use my
Mod Load Order
Section
as a guide.

7.)

Other options:You
can also uncheck any esp (and esm) in FOMM (just click on
the mod's check box)This is helpful (and often necessary when a mod has multiple
esp's)You can also delete any esp that you don't need
(by
right-clicking on it and selecting delete).(If you need to restore a deleted esp, just open the Package
Manager, Deactivate the mod and then Activate it again.)Important: if you want
to delete the entire mod, follow my instructions at the
bottom (#9)

8.)

Play Fallout
3.Click on the Launch button on FOMM (the
Launch FOSE button if you have FOSE installed).Play long enough to find out if the MOD (and the
game) works properly.

9.)

Removing a Mod (that
you created with FOMM), you need to follow these
instructions:Open FOMM and then the Package Manager.Select the fomod that you want to remove.Right-click on it and select delete.

Some mods require a clean save when you uninstall
them or when you upgrade to a newer version.

Follow these steps:

1.)

It is generally best to go to an interior cell,
and smaller cells are best. An interior cell is apparent
because you have a loading screen when you "open" the door from
the outside (such as when you enter most buildings).

2.)

Save your game to a new save slot (do not overwrite an
earlier save) and quit the game.

3.)

Uninstall the mod.

4.)

Start the game and load your last saved game.

5.)

After the game full loads, make a new save (do
not overwrite an earlier save) and quit the game.

6.)

If you're upgrading the mod that you uninstalled,
you can now install the new version.

7.)

Start the game and load your previous saved game.

8.)

Just to be safe: make one more new save (do not
overwrite an earlier save).

Arwen Note: The information
below was written for Fallout 3, and I do not yet know how much
of it may also apply to Fallout New Vegas.

If you are launching Fallout through the FOMM
and running FOSE, the FalloutPrefs,ini file apparently is
bypassed (so edits to the file will have no effect on your
game).

FalloutPrefs.ini Edits:

Remove Waypoints from Pipboy
Compass

change
bShowQuestMarkers=1 to
bShowQuestMarkers=0 in the [Gameplay]
section.(This will disable the quest markers which appear at the very bottom of
your compass.)

Video Card Bug Fix

change
fGamma=1.0000
tofGamma=1.1867

Fallout.ini Edits:

IMPORTANT:
Because of the way Steam works, your Fallout.ini (Documents/My
Games/FalloutNV) gets over written. The easiest work
around for this is:
1.) Make a copy of the original fallout_default.ini file and
save it somewhere safe.
2.) Then edit the fallout_default.ini file (\Program
Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\fallout new vegas folder)

Remove
the Invisible Borders

change
bBorderRegionsEnabled=1
to bBorderRegionsEnabled=0

Quad Core Fix

Find the line:bUseThreadedAI=0
Change it to:bUseThreadedAI=1
Add another line after it and insert:iNumHWThreads=2

Mouse
Acceleration Fix

Add these lines
to the [controls] section:fForegroundMouseAccelBase=0fForegroundMouseAccelTop=0fForegroundMouseBase=0fForegroundMouseMult=0

Change the 1st Person Field of View (FOV) of the
Pip-Boy

Find the following
line: fPipboy1stPersonFOV=47.0000Change the default 47.0000 to a lower value to move your view closer (zoom in)Change the default 47.0000 to
a
higher value to move your view back (zoom out /
wide angle)

The screenshots below show the results (my
resolution is set at 1680 x 1050). For me, increasing
the value to 50.000 works the best , as it shows the entire
Pip-Boy, while not making the screen too small.

Pipboy1stPersonFOV=47.0000

fPipboy1stPersonFOV=60.0000

Change the Field of
View (FOV) for the computer terminal screens

Find the
following line: fRenderedTerminalFOV=0.15Change the default 0.15 to a lower value to move your view
closer (zoom in)Change the default 0.15 to a higher value to move your view
back (zoom out / wide angle)

Move to HUD Bars
Closer to the Edge of the Screen

Find the follow
and change the default 15 to a lower value (I'm using 5):iSafeZoneXWide=15iSafeZoneYWide=15iSafeZoneX=15iSafeZoneY=15

Increase Number
of Cells that are Buffered into RAM (may help
make performance a bit smoother)